


If you rescue me

by sixchord



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers Mansion, Gen, M/M, this fic is about kittens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-05
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-14 00:40:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixchord/pseuds/sixchord
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark doesn’t complain when the Avengers move into his mansion, even though Steve thinks he has every right to be annoyed.</p>
<p>Which is why Steve is so surprised when Tony loudly objects to the kittens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If you rescue me

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this RDJ quote about his rescue kittens: "Eighteen months ago, I'm saying, 'I don't want any rescue pets within 100 yards of either of my residences, I'm sorry. I don't want some, like, tripod, abused animal.' I was adamantly opposed to the whole idea. And now I couldn't imagine living without them. I've become one of those people where the Missus is like, 'They don't want to see iPhone pictures of our kittens right now. Stop it."
> 
> Title from "If You Rescue Me (Chanson des Chats)" from the Science of Sleep soundtrack go listen it is so cute.

Tony Stark doesn’t complain when the Avengers move into his mansion, even though Steve thinks he has every right to be annoyed.

He doesn’t complain when Bruce meets Jarvis for the first time and totally freaks out, more or less destroying the kitchen.  Or when Natasha hacks her way into his workshop and borrows his newest model of the repulsor because she’s feuding with Cyclops.  Or when Clint shoots the left front tire of his Ferrari as he pulls into the drive and claims he had been aiming for something on the drive—not Tony’s car.  Or when Steve completely demolishes the gym at six in the morning.  Or when Thor loves his new phone (which was a prototype, the only existing model) so much that he throws it on the ground, shattering it into pieces.

Instead, Tony introduces Bruce to Jarvis and then hires some guys to remodel the kitchen; he amps up security on his workshop and builds Natasha a miniature repulsor of her own; he buys a new tire; he invents some less breakable equipment for the gym; he makes an even better phone.

Even though any other man would have complained, for some reason Tony doesn’t.

Which is why Steve is so surprised when Tony loudly objects to the kittens.

\--

“No,” Tony says.

“But look at them,” Steve says, lifting one of the scruffy kittens (this one was calico with a white patch around her eye) up to Tony’s face.  “They’re so fluffy.”

“And they probably have fleas and lice and, I don’t know, the plague, and no, I don’t want them in this house.  Can’t you give them to, like, one of your crusty bridge buddies?” 

Steve cradles the kitten to his chest and says, “I do not play bridge—“

“Thank god, because that would be—“

“I play bingo.”

Tony stares at him, covers his face with one hand for a brief moment, and then walks away.

\--

They’re exceptionally well-behaved, for kittens.  The yellow one is named Fitzgerald (Fitz for short) and the calico one is named Steinbeck (or Becky).  When Tony finds out the names, he says, “You named a girl kitten Steinbeck.”

“Becky for short,” Steve says, wincing as Becky rakes her claws down the side of his neck.  “I was going to name her Cathy but then I remembered that I’ve never read a Cathy I liked and, well, Steinbeck is my favorite author.”

“Let me guess,” Tony says.  “Is F. Scott Fitzgerald another one?”

“What would you name them, if you’re so smart?”

“Pest,” Tony says.  “And Furball.”

“Like that’s any better.”

“Yeah, well, you have one week to find them another home.  Oh, and also, you are never allowed to name anything ever again.  Ever.”  Tony glowers at him, which definitely should not be funny, and at least Steve restrains his laughter until Tony has left the room.

\--

Tony complains even more when he sees Bruce curled up with a kitten on his lap.  “But Tony,” Bruce says.  “They’re really fuzzy.”

He’s appalled when he walks in on Thor nuzzling Becky’s head.  “They remind me of the great kraken my brother and I played with when we were but boys.”  And, okay, there’s really nothing Tony can say to that, mostly because he has no idea how to handle a reality where the kraken is a thing that exists.

But the worst is when he stumbles down to the kitchen one morning to find Natasha feeding the kittens some truly foul-smelling wet cat food.  On one of his good crystal plates.  On the counter.  Cooing at them. 

After guzzling a whole pot of coffee in about ten seconds and burning his tongue, Tony goes to the gym and says, “They need to go.”

Steve stops punching the wall, which, okay, Tony built him three new state-of-the-art punching bags, he doesn’t need to punch a padded, unmoving wall.  Steve, who of course isn’t wearing a shirt (of course not, that would just be silly) raises his eyebrows and says, “Pardon?”

“Your baby hellcats,” Tony clarifies. 

“Oh.  Why?  They’re both really smart, I already got them litter trained and—“

“Ew,” Tony says.  “Do you know how hard it is for me knowing that somewhere in this house is a box full of cat shit?  That’s just—ugh.  No, I don’t give a flying fuck how smart they are, or how clean, or how fuzzy, or—they’re turning the whole team soft, Steve.  These kittens are single-handedly—pawedly?—making everybody into total idiots.  Myself excluded, of course.”

“Our missions have been going fine,” Steve says.

“Yeah, well, that’s probably because nobody’s thought to bring the kittens along.”

Steve’s eyebrows furrow.  “That would be really stupid,” he says. 

“My point exactly!”  Tony crosses his arms, ignoring the part of his brain that says that everything coming out of his mouth is total bullshit.  “I just think it’s time they moved on to more permanent homes, don’t you?”

“I think you’re just afraid to let a little kitten into your heart,” Steve says, a smile creeping across his face.  His dimples pop out and he crosses his arms to mirror Tony.

“That’s ridiculous,” Tony says, pointedly not looking at Steve, or his dimples.  “I just can’t possibly live another day with Natasha baby-talking at kittens.  It’s—no.  You know what, this is my house, what I say goes, and I say the kittens go.”

Steve sighs and shrugs.  “Okay.  Just give me a week?”

“Jesus Christ, Steve, you need to just recognize that you’ve lost, okay, I am not cowed by your Captain America awesomeness, and I will not take no for an answer, I—wait, what?”  One of these days, Tony tells himself, he will start listening.  Tomorrow.  He’ll start tomorrow.

“Yeah, I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ll miss them, but they’ll probably be better off with a more—stable family.”

Tony frowns at him, one word sticking in his mind.  “Are you calling us a family?”

Steve shrugs again.  “If the shoe fits.”

\--

The thing is, Tony’s not entirely sure what a family feels like.  Sure, his mom was nice, but his dad was rich and powerful and very, very busy.  In Tony’s world, family is something that gets you into good schools and means you will never be out of a job as long as you live.

Family isn’t returning home from a mission only to find Natasha, Clint, and Thor playing Worst Case Scenario at the kitchen table (“This is absurd, even the most tiny of Asgardian babes knows that one does not run from a bear!”).  And it probably isn’t creating a playlist of Enya and Celtic Woman for Jarvis to play when the Hulk is on a rampage.

And it definitely isn’t teaching Steve how to play chopsticks on the piano, mostly because Tony has some extremely unfamilial feelings about Steve’s thigh brushing his, and so if this fucked up collection of people is a family, he and Steve must be the parents, which is just too much for Tony to handle or think about.

So, needless to say, he is a little bothered by Steve’s insinuation that the Avengers have become a family.  He continues to look at the kittens suspiciously, because somehow they have become the symbol of familyhood, and he is disgusted with himself whenever he absently thinks that really, they _are_ kind of cute.

As the week carries on, Tony pays more and more attention.  He notices an easy camaraderie among the team, which remains unbroken even when Thor seizes Clint around the neck and gives him what is probably the worst noogie in the history of ever.  Clint gets back at him by stealing all Thor’s clothes while he’s swimming, which—doesn’t turn out so well for anybody except Thor, who takes it as an invitation to become a nudist.

Natasha is still scary as hell, but at least now he knows she’s human and not a cleverly disguised robot (not that he ever really thought that, because he would have known, okay, he would have known because he was literally the only person on earth smart enough to design a robot that advanced).  Tony knows that she always wakes up to feed the kittens basically whenever they start mewling for food, and she often says such horrifying things as “oh, sweetie pie, it’s okay, time for num nums now” which just really causes Tony a lot of cognitive dissonance.

Bruce hasn’t Hulked since meeting Jarvis, which is totally awesome in Tony’s book, especially now that the kitchen is done.  Of course, Tony’s a little concerned there might be some green action when Bruce finds out about the playlist, which is titled “It’s not that easy being green,” but in the end the guy is really touched and hugs Tony, which is totally weird, saying, “Thanks, Tony.  That means a lot.”

Steve has changed the most, which makes sense, since he had a lot more to catch up on than everybody else.  He is almost totally with the program now, which is awesome, it really is, Tony was almost completely fed up with having to explain Brady Bunch references to the guy.  As far as Tony’s concerned, The Brady Bunch should have stayed in the sixties and he does not appreciate having to explain “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.”  But Steve is a fast learner and spends a lot of time when they aren’t on missions cuddling with the kittens and catching up on his cultural literacy.  He’s obviously, quietly (maybe it’s only obvious to Tony, come to think of it, because Tony is pretty sure he’s the only one who constantly watches Steve, which isn’t creepy at all, thank you very much) thrilled to be a part of something again, even if that something is a dysfunctional team of above-average losers.

(Clint and Thor haven’t really changed that much.  Clint is still an asshole, and Thor is still straight out of a renaissance fair, and somehow they have become best friends, which is actually the most terrifying thing Tony has ever seen.  Ever.  Worse than the Chitauri by a long shot.)

But none of that means that they’ve become a family.  If they were really a family, someone would make pancakes on Sunday and pot roast on Wednesday and he and Steve (who are totally the parents, who is he kidding) would have sex every Monday and possibly Thursday, and they would have to buy a minivan and Tony would threaten to turn it around whenever Clint and Thor get in a fight.

Tony’s denial continues smoothly until Sunday, when he fumbles into the kitchen, eyes closed, and smells pancakes.  He opens his eyes and squints at Steve, who grins at him and says, “Two pancakes or three?”

For a few seconds Tony stares at him and then says, “You know this makes you the mom.”

“Don’t stereotype, Tony,” Steve says.  “Also, since when are we married?”

Because he hasn’t had his coffee yet, Tony blinks at him, grabs the entire pot of coffee, and goes back to his room.

\--

When Fitz wanders into Tony’s shop, they stare at each other for a minute before it occurs to Tony to wonder how the furball got in in the first place.  “Jarvis,” he says.  “Explain yourself.”

“I thought you could use the company,” Jarvis says. 

“You are so wrong.  The wrongest.  I do not want that harbinger of—of pestilence and—look, just don’t let it in again, okay?” Tony says.  He squints at the kitten and walks forward a bit, trying to nudge it backward with his foot.  Instead, the kitten jumps on top of his shoe and scrabbles up his jeans.  “No!  Bad cat! Get—Jarvis get Steve.”  He shakes his leg, but the kitten won’t budge.

“Captain Rogers is on his way, sir,” Jarvis says. 

The kitten claws its way onto his thigh.  “Jesus fuck, you little—you—Steve!  Fix it!”  He waves his leg as Steve walks in.  “Your little monster has brainwashed Jarvis.”

Steve blinks at him.  “You called me down here to, what?  To save you from Fitz?  Tony.  That’s ridiculous.”  He bends over and plucks up the kitten in one of his massive hands, which is just really not fair.

“Look, I didn’t want you to get all mad at me in case I, like, hurt it or something,” Tony grumbles, going to shove his goggles back over his eyes.  He stops when he notices the look on Steve’s face.  “What?  Is there something on my—“

“Tony,” Steve says.  “Have you never held a kitten before?  Is that what this is about?  You’re worried you’ll hurt them?”

At that, Tony slams his goggles on and says, “No.  That is absolutely not what’s going on.”  He walks back to his welding torch and cranks it on.  “If you don’t mind, I need to get back to work, and having you and a flammable ball of fur in here is a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

Steve walks to the door and the kitten climbs up onto his shoulder.  “You know, Tony, it’s okay to be afraid.”

Even though he’s already out the door, Tony yells, “I’m not afraid!” and accidentally melts some of Dummy’s circuitry with his wayward torch.

\--

Two days after destroying (and fixing!  He’s actually good at fixing things, no matter what everybody seems to think) Dummy, Tony is still not talking to Steve.  He understands that he is a grown man and that he’s behaving like a child, but whatever.  He’s a grown man who can make his own damn decisions and right now he is deciding to sulk.

And Steve, of course, is acting like nothing ever happened.  He brings Tony food and Tylenol and sometimes changes Tony’s AC/DC to the Andrews Sisters.  He keeps the kittens away.

It’s all totally okay and fine and that’s why Tony is kind of offended when Natasha hacks her way into his shop (again) and says, “I don’t know why Steve likes you, but he does, and right now your little snit is upsetting him.”

“My little—?”

“And if you don’t apologize for whatever you did, I will find a way to make you,” she says, crossing her arms and staring at him.  She’s wearing sweatpants.  It shouldn’t be threatening, but it totally is.

“Oh yeah?  What exactly will you—“

“We’re having a movie night,” she says.  Tony blinks at her.  “Thor has never seen _The Princess Bride_ and Clint almost shot himself in the foot when he found out.  Bruce is making grilled cheese sandwiches right now.  If you don’t come and watch with us, I will tell him that you hate grilled cheese and also him.  And then you can deal with the repercussions.  Yes?”

He keeps blinking at her.  “Wait.  So what you’re trying to tell me is that…you’re blackmailing me into watching _The Princess Bride_ and eating delicious sandwiches?  Really?”

She shrugs and ruffles her elegant curls.  “More or less.  Plus Steve will be there and he likes having you around.  I don’t know why.”

“You really know how to flatter a guy,” he says.

“So you’ll be there?”

He quirks his eyebrows at her and sets his screwdriver down on the workbench.  “Yeah, why not.”

Predictably, Steve does not seem to care that Tony has decided to put in an appearance.  He is beautiful and blond and smiling as ever as he sits on the couch, both kittens crawling all over his chest and really life is just not fair, Tony thinks.  He’s jealous of kittens.  Obviously he needs to find a new hobby or something to distract him from the fact that his life sucks.

“Tony!” Bruce says, sliding into the living room on stocking feet.  “What do you want on your sandwich?”  He’s wearing an apron that says _KISS THE COOK_ , which, where did that come from? 

So Tony blows him a kiss and says, “As much cheese as you can fit” while Bruce catches the kiss and puts it in his apron pocket.  Sometimes Tony doesn’t know where his life went wrong.

“Thor actually kissed him,” Clint says from the leather recliner.  “I think there was tongue.”

“That’s—nice,” Tony says.

As always, Thor, who is sitting in the weird throne thing he found at an antique store, looks jovial and magnanimous, which is impressive since one of the kittens is currently clinging onto his head.  “In Asgard it is customary to—“

“Thor.  Buddy.  I need you not to say anything until you’ve seen this movie,” Clint says, placing one hand on Thor’s knee.  “You just—you can’t.  This is really not okay.  I can’t believe you’ve never seen it.”

“I’ve never seen it either,” Steve says.

“Well of course _you_ haven’t,” Clint says.  “You’re you.  You’ve only seen the movies _Tony_ thinks are important.”  He reaches up and grabs the kitten before patting Thor on the head.  “I clearly have not done a good enough job nurturing young Thor here.”

Tony rolls his eyes and sits down next to Steve, who smiles slightly at him and says, “You’re awfully close to Becky right now.”

“Yeah, well, Becky looks kind of busy so I’m not too worried that she’ll, like, claw my face off or anything.”  In fact, Becky has fallen asleep in the crook of Steve’s neck, which is—okay, it’s unfairly adorable.  Tony will admit that much.  “You just keep her over there and we won’t have any problems.”

“Yes, sir,” Steve says.  Then Bruce slides in again with a platter of sandwiches and Clint starts the movie even though everybody is still getting settled.  Natasha grabs two sandwiches and slides into Clint’s chair.  Bruce sprawls on the floor and tosses Fitz gently in the air, which is absolutely not cute in the slightest.

“Tony, if you talk through this movie—“ Clint starts.  Natasha shoves half a sandwich in his mouth.

“Don’t worry, there’s, like, barely any science.  You don’t have to worry about me and my big mouth,” Tony says.  He honestly doesn’t feel bad about that one time he ruined _I, Robot_ for everybody.  Or _Gattaca._ These people are his kind-of-friends and they need to know that what they are watching is wrong.

Halfway through the movie, Tony starts to nod off against Steve’s shoulder, which is really not okay with him because then everybody will know that in his head he’s, like, already picked out the china patterns and everything for his and Steve’s future house.  Not that he actually knows anything about china patterns but—it’s the principle of the thing.

So he stretches out on the couch and plunks his legs across Steve’s lap.  Because that’s platonic.  Yeah.

Except then Steve kind of rests his hand right above Tony’s ankle and Tony decides that now is probably the time to just run equations in his head until he’s gone.

\---

When he wakes up, it’s really quiet.  There’s still a weight across his shins, which is all warm and totally Steve-like.

And his neck is…really warm. 

He blinks a couple times and then carefully reaches a hand up to his throat.

“Steve,” he says.  “Why are there kittens on me.”

“You really can’t lie down and expect kittens not to cuddle,” Steve says.

“You promised to keep them away,” Tony whines.  He hears one of the kittens yawn squeakily.  “This is—this is really not what I signed up for.”

“Realistically speaking, I’m pretty sure none of our contracts involved kittens,” Steve says.  He grins and squeezes Tony’s ankle lightly.  “And when they first jumped up on you, I was going to move them, but then you started cuddling back and who am I to interfere with a love like that?”

“I did no such thing,” Tony says, frowning.

Steve laughs and says, “Clint filmed you.  If you want to see.”

“No.  That is—no.”  One of the kittens reaches up and pats his face while the other butts up under his chin.  “Steve, I am really not a cat person.  I mean, I’m really not an anything person, except maybe, like, robots and Jarvis and—Avengers.  And Fury.  I love that guy.”

Steve raises his eyebrows.

“Didn’t I ever teach you sarcasm?” Tony says.  The kittens are purring now and he can feel the vibrations in his skin.  “Anyways, what I’m saying is, kittens.  Cats.  They’re like an unknown variable, right?”

“It’s been a really long time since I did any kind of math,” Steve says, looking a little sad.

“Lucky for you, I’m awesome at math.  If you give me a few minutes I could probably set up an equation and solve for kittens.”  Steve starts laughing then, shaking Tony’s legs.  “Anyways.  What I’m trying to say is that I don’t like cats.”

“I know,” Steve says, his laughter dying.  His grip on Tony’s ankle tightens. 

“They’re just so demanding.  And I’m demanding and I just can’t see all these demanding personalities coexisting peacefully.  I mean, I really think you are probably underestimating just how much I don’t like cats—“

“They’ll be gone tomorrow, don’t worry,” Steve says.

“—but I also think you are underestimating how much I _do_ like you,” Tony finishes.

“Wait.  What?” Steve says.

Reaching up carefully to pat the kittens, Tony says, “This is me telling you that you can keep the kittens.  In case you missed that.  If you want to, I mean.”

Steve stares at him for a moment before a giant sunshiney grin breaks on his face.  “You like me?” he says.

“That’s what you’re getting from this?” Tony says, retracting his hand from where it had—totally of its own will!—started stroking the kittens.  “Dude, I just told you that you can keep the kittens and—“

“Because you like me.  You like me more than you don’t like cats, which means you must like me a lot.”  He keeps grinning, and its verging on psychotic now.

“Wow, you are—really happy,” Tony says intelligently. 

“I like you too, Tony,” Steve says. 

Tony blinks.  He kind of knew that, he thinks.  Besides the fact that Natasha told him, which totally doesn’t count because Natasha will use whatever it takes to get results.  “So,” Tony says.  “We have established that the liking is mutual.”

Nodding, Steve reaches over and gently picks up both kittens in one hand.  He sets them on the squashed down couch-back, and they don’t even seem to notice.  Then he grabs Tony’s hands and hauls him up so he’s sitting, his legs still across Steve’s lap.  “So,” he says.

And the angle is totally awkward when they kiss, but still they’re kissing, and it’s kind of awesome because of how awkward it is.  They just sit there, kissing, Tony’s neck starting to ache from the angle, and they don’t separate until Becky leaps onto Tony’s back, raking her claws across his shoulder.

After Tony has finished squawking in such an undignified manner that he will probably have Jarvis erase the footage later, he says, “Have I mentioned how much I dislike cats?”

And Steve, who is apparently evil and also completely shameless, quirks up one eyebrow and says, his mouth tilting, “I’ll just have to persuade you to change your mind.”

Tony thinks about it.  “Okay,” he says, diving back in.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I love cats oh god.
> 
> If you like what you just read, come find me on tumblr! My username is sixchord over there too :)


End file.
